Rufous Hummingbird

Today was a warm wet winter day in Houston, TX and this morning I decided I would start working on weeding the backyard gardens. While I was weeding I heard a hummingbird and when I looked up there was a hummingbird at my feeder! The first hummingbird I have seen since I put it up earlier this month and the first time I have seen this specie. It was a female Rufous Hummingbird - Selasphorus rufus. It would sit and drink for a minute and then zoom off and then return in about 10 minutes; it did this a few times.

Woodpecker Nests

When visiting my parents in Florida I always take many walks around the yard and neighborhood. There is always an abundance of wildlife to be seen. Winter time is nice because there is a lot of migratory birds in addition to the year-round residents. Some of the year-round residents are various species of woodpeckers.

A few years ago I made a large nest box designed for Wood Ducks in hopes some sort of waterfowl (Black-bellied Whistling Duck) or owl (Barred Owl) might use it. Soon after it was put up I saw a Great-crested Flycatcher examining it but it didn't seem interested. Then a male Pileated Woodpecker found it. It apparently liked it because for the past few years it has used it every night to sleep in. Interestingly this year my father said that there were two nesting in it but on this recent trip back I only saw the female using it. ( I wonder if the female evicted the male? ...or perhaps the male died? - I hope not.)

Here is the male Pileated Woodpecker - Dryocopus pileatus . Picture taken Dec. 2009. The Box was put up Mar. 2008.

This is the female Pileated Woodpecker - Dryocopus pileatus . Picture taken Dec. 2010 - using the same next box.

The nest box is attached to this Slash Pine (Pinus elliottii) across the pond. The box faces north west.

Another woodpecker nesting around the yard is a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. It is using an old bird house I bought many years ago. It too sleeps in this box every night and last spring made a nest inside. I find it a little strange because the box seems a little small for this specie of woodpecker but after putting 3 bird houses of this size up in a few day I saw the red-bellied woodpecker pecking at the entrance to make it larger (like it did to the original one).

Here is the Red-bellied Woodpecker - Melanerpes carolinus looking out of the bird house when I approached.

On a side note: all of these woodpeckers Im writing about on this post return to there homes before the sun drops below the tree line which means it is still sunny when they retire for the night.

Here are some Eastern Bluebirds - Sialia sialis checking out the Red-bellied Woodpeckers home.

Here is me standing next to one of the 3 bird houses we put up this time - there are a total of 8 around the house now (though one, a Kestrel house, was taken over by a swarm of bees!) This house Im standing next to was the one the Red-bellied Woodpecker was opening the entrance to but was chased away by some Eastern Bluebirds...

And here is the Kestrel box that was taken over by bees... Isn't this bazar? Especially how the honeycomb is sticking out of the entrance. ...I have never seen anything like it.

And so the last woodpecker that is nesting around the house is the Downy Woodpecker. It isn't using the bird houses though. It has made its own holes using the large bamboo stakes that are holding up fruit trees. This too looks like it is a small home but this downy woodpecker was tucked nicely inside until I walked by it and it flew out! I had no idea anything was inside (I thought my parents had made the holes but it was the woodpecker!) There are two bamboo stakes that I noticed had holes like this.

The Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens going back into his house for the night.

In addition to these three species of woodpecker down the street there is also a Red-headed Woodpecker ( Melanerpes erythrocephalus ) pair that has been nesting in the same dead pine for at least the past 5 years. Every time I go back to Florida I see them at the tree.

Lunar Eclipse

Hello! Happy Winter!

This Christmas I went to visit my family in Florida. It was really nice despite the unusually cold weather! On the 21st, the winter solstice, we all woke up around 3am to watch the lunar eclipse. It was really neat watching the moon and identifying constellations - we every saw some nice shooting stars. Here are some of my pictures of

the eclipse.

Thanks for stopping by!

Icicle Christmas Lights

Hello! I hope you are having a nice day today.

Today I just wanted to share with you some of the coolest Christmas lights I have ever seen. These are icicle Christmas lights by Martha Stewart available at the Home Depot. We put them up on our house along with other lights from the Martha Stewart Living collection as well as artificial Christmas trees, ornaments, wreathes, and other decorations. I think this has been the most festive I have felt since moving to Texas.

These icicle lights are really impressive at night but equally impressive in the day time as they look like real ice! -and that is really nice when you live somewhere southern like Houston and some days are in the 70s and 80s which doesn't feel very wintery.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet carvings

Hello! I hope you are warm and cozy on this cold fall day!

I have very busy lately with all sorts of things but one of the more fun things that I have been doing is carving birds.

I have carved many birds before but this year I have really gotten into carving them more seriously. So far I have made 16 birds total. All birds were carved from ones that I saw in the wild. So far here is the list:

1. Ruby-throated Hummingbird -TX

2. Prothonotary Warbler - Costa Rica

3. Ruby-crowned Kinglet - TX

4. Carolina Chickadee - TX

5. Mourning Dove - TX

6. Ruby-throated Hummingbird - TX

7. Indigo Bunting - VA

8. Carolina Wren - TX

9. Tufted Titmouse - TX

10. Common Ground-Dove - TX

11. - 16. Ruby-crowned Kinglet - TX

The latest ones are the the six Ruby-Crowned Kinglets:

I hope to give these as Christmas gifts to some friends. Maybe I'll make some little red scarves out of ribbon to put around there necks to make them extra cute.